Our perceptions and beliefs about ourselves, others, and the world around us stem from our inherent personalities, filtered through past and current influences: familial, generational, cultural, and social.

The perceptions and beliefs we hold can be based on truths, or they can be false and based on Unconscious Influences* we unknowingly hold. *(definition below).

The tendency to allow false perceptions to be created has its roots in Humanity’s past, which we perpetrated without knowing we were doing so.

All of our conscious and Unconscious Influences work together like threads in a patchwork quilt that link the interweaving patterns of how we deal with life—like a matrix that overlays our lives. I call this our Life Matrix.

Our Life Matrix: Is the lens through which we see and navigate the world. Fueled by our heart beliefs, which come from our conscious and Unconscious Influences, our Life Matrix holds all of our underlying perceptions and misperceptions. It supports what we think we need to be and what we think we need to do to be happy, fulfilled, empowered, and to have harmonious relationships. It upholds all of our perceptions—whether they are real or false.

Our Life Matrix can bring about positive or negative experiences for us. We usually develop a dominant Life Matrix, but since living is an organic ebb and flow of thoughts and emotions, we may vacillate between the positive and negative influences of both forces.

If something causes us to react out of character, our heart beliefs cause us to quickly revert to our normal attitudes.

Our Life Matrix will predispose us to deal with life, others, issues, and situations by denying, procrastinating, responding calmly, or by reacting aggressively or passively.

A Positive Life Matrix

Living under the influence of a positive Life Matrix, we may embody optimism, confidence, and hopefulness. We may feel lucky, be fearless, as well as be accepting of others since a positive outlook and our own self-confidence cause us to be non-judgmental.

We could sometimes succumb to arrogance, impatience, or single-mindedness as our personality dictates, but emotional reactions will generally be composed.

Most of our dealings with others will likely be propelled by responses instead of reactions. And as our general outlook is positive, we will quickly return to positive attitudes should we fall into negative ones.

A positive Life Matrix may temporarily shift to a negative one, but we are usually pulled back as our underlying inner belief system holds a positive approach to life.

The same holds true for a negative Life Matrix. We may have times of positivity, but we generally default to the negative. A negative Life Matrix can be shifted more permanently to the positive, albeit with a sincere and conscious effort.

A Negative Life Matrix

If we are living under the influence of a negative Life Matrix, we are often needy. We may tend to be pessimistic, hesitant, doubtful, and feel disadvantaged.

As these attitudes do not invite in desired results we are often frustrated. We blame others for our failures. We may act with aggression, timidity, or passive-aggressiveness, or, vacillate between these ways of dealing with our frustrations.

When we do evoke positive feelings they are usually undermined, as our negative heart beliefs eventually pull us back under their influence.

We may hold a volatile emotional component and will be overtly reactive—instead of being responsive to situations and taking them at face value and without making it all about us and our neediness and/or emotions.

Or, we may respond with seeming passivity, but are internalizing our angers or frustrations keeping our inner world in turmoil. This becomes a vicious cycle, as inner turmoil invites in more of the same.

Our emotional state is very important because it defines who we are now being, which influences what our future holds.

It has only been in the last century or so that psychologists have been able to connect the dots between our Unconscious Influences. and how we experience life.

We often feel that we do not experience enough love in our lives; however, our capacity to truly feel love and to love others is in direct relationship to what is held in our Life Matrix.

Working to create a positive Life Matrix creates self-love and brings love into our life.

To become the cause of our experiences and the creator of our realities—instead of at the effect of negative Unconscious Influences, we must be cognizant of the vibrations we are emitting.

The conscious and unconscious beliefs and life philosophies within our Life Matrix govern everything we think, say, and do and thereby what we invite into our life.

The lens through which we view others and the world around us is how the world will show up for us. We become what we think we are, and we create based on what is held in our Life Matrix.

*Our Unconscious Influences: Our thoughts, attitudes, beliefs, and ideas based on past emotional impressions that we unconsciously constructed or appropriated from others, or from past situations. These may have created true positive perceptions about ourselves, others, situations, or the world around us. Or, they may have created negative false misperceptions that have us see ourselves and others through false lenses of separation and division.